God's Measure of Success In Ministry

uccess in most nations, governments, social groups, businesses, and churches in the world today is measured by how much income is received and/or by how many people attend. Most of us are impressed with large companies that have huge annual profits or have tens of thousands of employees. Some of us would like to own that mansion we saw last week while driving in the city or country. Some of us are jealous of wealthy people. We admire the Bill Gates of the world and some would like to live in his home. In short, money and numbers are measures of success. This is true not just in the world but unfortunately also in our churches. Churches boast about how much money they give to missions, and pastors are frequently asked about the size of their church or the size of their annual budget. But this is not new. It has always been this way as we will see in our study; but God has a different measure of success and it is not numbers!

After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He was spending time with them and baptizing. John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people were coming and were being baptized — for John had not yet been thrown into prison. (NASB) John 3:22-24

The first thing that we are told is that Jesus and His disciples were down in Judea baptizing. The Greek language of John 4:1-2 tells us that Jesus did some baptizing, but His disciples were doing most of it. Jesus did very little. He was a great example of a servant leader who shared the ministry with others. Some leaders want to do everything.

We also discover in these first opening verses that John the Baptist was in Aenon near Salim which means “springs.” The geography of Aenon and Salim was probably very similar since they were near the Jordan River where there was lots of water. There are three modes of baptism that are practiced today by Christians: sprinkling, pouring, and immersion. Which one do you think requires “much water”? Why did John want “much water”? Since “much water” is not required for sprinkling or pouring, it appears that John the Baptist was baptizing or immersing people. That is, he dipped people below the surface of the water. Both John and Jesus were baptizing people. That is the message. Both of them were drawing crowds of people. Both of them were popular, but more people were coming to see Jesus.